The question is always the same: how much for a set of gel nails, and is removal extra. Then: can we get in on Saturday, can our friend book beside us, and what does your nail art actually look like. Someone searching websites for nail salons in Dublin has her Debs, her holiday or a wedding in mind and wants the answer in under a minute. If your prices live only in your Instagram highlights and booking means messaging and waiting for a reply, the salon down the road that shows the list and takes the booking gets her.
We set up and look after the site, the Google listing and the booking diary, so you can keep your eyes on the nails in front of you.
Why ‘from’ prices lose the booking
Nail pricing has add-ons that catch people out: removal of the old set, extra length, French tips, chrome, hand-painted art per nail, a repair. If the page says ‘gel from’ and the bill comes to twice that, you get a quiet customer who never comes back and a review that says ‘hidden charges’. Put the full list up. Gel polish on natural nails, BIAB, acrylic full set, infill, hard gel, removal with and without a new set, pedicure, and a line that art is priced per nail or per set. People do not mind paying. They mind being surprised.
The grid is the portfolio, the site takes the booking
Your Instagram is the right place to show sets. Keep posting. But nobody can book from a Reel, and a woman who found you through ‘nails near us’ on Google wants to tap once and see Saturday’s free slots. The site links to your grid, shows your best twelve sets, and puts the Book button beside the price list. Two friends booking side by side for the same time is a common request, so where you have two technicians the booking page allows two seats at once. We wrote about what Instagram does and does not do for a salon if you have been getting by on it alone.
Debs week, holiday week, Christmas week
The nail year has peaks that fill every slot and valleys that fill none. Late August and September is Debs. June and July is holidays, when every second booking is ‘something that will last two weeks in the sun’. May is Communion mams. The fortnight before Christmas you could run three chairs and still turn people away. A deposit on those weeks protects you from the no-show who booked three places and turned up at one. In the quiet weeks a post on your Google listing and a reminder text to anyone due an infill brings them back in.
Walk-ins, appointments and the bench
Plenty of nail bars run both: appointments for sets, walk-ins for a polish change or a repair, and a bench by the window for the queue. Say so plainly on the page. ‘Walk-ins welcome for polish and repairs, book for full sets’ saves you the phone call and sets the right expectation. Your hours, including the late night and the Sunday if you open, sit on the page and on Google together, and you change both from your phone when the bank holiday comes around.
The handover
Send us your full price list with the add-ons spelled out, your hours, how many technicians work at once, twelve photos of sets taken on a plain background in good light, and whether you take walk-ins for anything. If you already use Booksy or Fresha for bookings, we plug the site into it. If you do not and you want to compare, the booking systems Irish salons use lays them out side by side.
Plan and price for a nail salon
Complete is €1,499 to set up and €100 a month, and gives you the booking diary with reminders and deposits, the review texts and voucher sales. Essentials at €499 and €50 a month covers the price list, photos, hours and Google listing for a walk-in bar. Both are compared on the pricing page. Many nail salons also do brows and lashes, and the brow and lash studio page covers that side of the business.